Day 69 From A-B gets longer each time!

Tuesday 29/05/2018 Apartment Miles UTJEHA - BUSAT, Utjeha, 85000, Montenegro

Our time to move on has arrived so we packed up and headed off, only 4.30 hrs to drive today so can stop to look at things... well that was the plan..l

All going great sights as we leave Pljevlja were lovely Alpine houses and views... the further along we got the more mountainous it became.... the views when you could see them (which was hard as so many trees beside highway)... were just unreal... we came down a mountain pass we thought was high up to a massive bridge we could see from one lookout... wasn’t too many of them I am afraid 😧. The views from this bridge were out if this world... unreal deep gorge and yes you can even do ZIP line here too, plus white water rafting.... only thing it didn’t seem to offer was Bungee jumping... thank goodness 😅 as I feel the bridge when we did walk into it won’t be here forever it seemed to have cracks here and there... but who knows just how e I am not in it when it goes! Also while here about 15 or so bikers like John older blokes ( ha ha) riding around to explore the windy roads of different countries... they weren’t all together som groups of 4, some 6, some by themselves all decked out mainly beamers..... had all the right gear and of course the GoPro on the helmet.... we got talking too early group they were the big group, all professional men on leave from work, doing 4,000k round trip in 10 days... didn’t say how many countries, but as out Day went on we saw more and more groups doing the same thrill seeking ride. And as the day went in I am sure John thought he was on a motorbike going around all the hairpins we did all day...

Anyway back to the bridge had a cuppa here, then walked out into the bridge to get a better view of the river underneath... my glory is it a long way down and right in front of our eyes were Zip liners wizzing by... some up high some down lower... eventually we spotted white water rafters as well heading down the river... it didn’t look 👀 to bad 😨 but then we wee a long way up from the actual rapids ... while on the bridge we got talking to a couple from England who from the conversation do heaps of traveling around, this time making their way to Athens via many Eastern block countries... sound very adventurous.....

We should have eaten here but through we would get something up the road a bit... hmmm... well the road got windier, and winder and winder, hairpin bends continually, up up up we went higher and higher not sure how high we were, but it felt like we could get higher when we did... much of the road was not real wide and the going not too fast as plenty of trucks and cars... we did pull into a restaurant so it said to get lunch it was 1 pm now.. but no we only sell drinks.....what is it with this place only selling drinks... 😬..
So off we go past other restaurants on bends of the Hwy... then suddenly we ended up in a line of cars that we follow past other cars not sure what the go is then we realise we were following queue jumpers it was a massive line of trucks and cars for a few k.... suddenly we pulled in behind some trucks the line up we wee following anyway... and that’s where we sat for over an hour... John tried to find out what the go was but no luck... only found out a car was across the road down further stopping cars going through... other cars kept coming through every so often to jump the queue..Other cars started turning around and heading back from where we come... we only have about an 1.30-2 hrs to go so staying made sense... but as time went in it became apparent it was getting longer and longer and so was the line..l finally found out it was a road slip bug trucks had been coming past every so often... so must have been trying to fill it in but it could take hours, someone mentioned 3 hrs... so looking at the map we only had to go back 6ks and we would meet the other Hwy but it would take us 4 hrs at least if travelling... so that’s what we did,, turned around and headed on the only other Hwy in the country. You had a choice of 2 heys south one heading north south, the other heading west south we choose the west south... not a good choice apparently.... at least no border patrols...
So off we headed and my glory was this scenery even more spectacular than the other one was... and we thought it was unreal... again I couldn’t capture the true raw rugged Beauty of it due to too many trees by the Hwy. the other way had heaps of snow draped Mountains but this way had heaps more than the other, more bare rock mountains and we went higher and higher and higher more hairpins tiny rough road... looks like it was an old road not used much anymore had landslides into it and in many places it looked like they road would slip away as well... John was in seventh heaven driving on these roads and from the clock that was giving us an arrival time we were making up time fast.... passing cars in some spots were a bit hairy, heaps of motorbikes used this road it was more windy and less cars on it... but more scary if you went over the edge and that could happen from the look of the rust coloured side rails...l eventually we started to come down. Thought we must have been heading to heaven....... occasionally there was an alpine type house tucked into a bend why people would want to live on this isolated Hwy has got me beat????? But they were here. Finally we spot a village down in a raven, it looked so quaint from up high but once there it looked a bit worse for ware.. anyway continued on, by now we were really hungry it was after 4 pm and we still had over 2 hours to go to get there... we found a servo that had restaurant on it... we looked for takeaway food in the servo but only drinks funny that.... so we ordered food to go and then had a quick cuppa, which picked us up and off we set with our food to go.... best tasting ham and cheese turns out toasted flat bread sandwich we have ever had... flavour was great plus great tasting chips...we did manage to make up time, driving like we were in a race mind you we couldn’t get over 80 on the straights and the hair pins we couldn’t get over 30 but we did hit 50 on any straight which there wasn’t many of...

So by now the scenery was still raw rugged mountains, kind off a bit like Crete.... the cities we went through didn’t look that appealing but to be fair, we were only on the Hwy through them .....eventually we meet the sea then a 4179 kilometre tunnel which cost €2.50 to go through unreal it was that long... didn’t seem to take long to go through..... next thing we are out and on the open sea side of many Tourist Mecca’s ailing the coast of Montenegro...Rugged mountains behind the coastal towns, cities... finally after trying a few downhill tracks and that’s what they were tracks we find our apartment and yes it dies have a sea view but we are about 1-2 is from the beach ... a lady let a John in turns out she is our neighbour in the next apartment from the Ukraine 🇺🇦 her, her husband who speaks English and his mum who speaks a little English.... the lady speaks very little but tries... better than us who dont speak anything but English sadly...

We get ourselves set up on the top floor so had to lug everything up a lot of stairs to our Seaview room... we are told the owner will meet us at 9pm, sounds late but we did say we would be here until 7 when on the road to let him know we would be late John sent a text, however we actually got here just after 6pm John did make up time....
We had nibbles for dinner on our Seaview patio, I keep saying this because when we went online to come here I had to writer story about ourselves so I did the sob we live in the country and when ever we get the opportunity to have a Seaview we jump at it as we don’t have it at home... so he must have listen and gave us the top unit with yes sea views... the neighbours view is better due to the angle of the building they get more sea view... but who cares we still have a view especially when you sit on the patio.

The owner turns up so John goes to talk with him... Mila it turns out only speaks Russian, so he gets his son on the phone to talk to John, Mila wants me to join them so we can have a Rakia their local firewater....

Well what a night... Mila didn’t speak a word of English so after trying to talk with each other he got the neighbours down to interpret for us... it became a big night... Mila already had laid on nibbles he had made, cheese, prosciutt, ham, olives, salami, Rakia and red wine he made them all himself... he also built these units and now building some more at the back.... a very clever man... he looks about late 60’s not sure if he is or not... John well, John had a big night and after a number of shots I see him take off and he didn’t return,... after i had far too much wine and shots myself, I excuse myself to find a dead man in the floor of the bathroom....I climbed over him to have my shower and left him in his dead state in the bathroom with his face in the loo.... he did come to bed e eventually just not sure when.... so much for our non alcohol day off!Les mer